Austin home sales continued cooling off in October with a majority of our 8 categories above in red (ie-trending negative). We’ve had more red categories the past 3 months (11) than we’ve had in the first 7 months of this year combined (9). Also, the 1st 3 months of this year we averaged 79% of the 8 categories in green, but the last 3 months we’ve averaged 38%. In fact, we’ve only had 2 solid green categories (ie-10+% increase over the same month of last year) this whole year: July (1) and March (1). Even so, our inventory currently remains low at only 3.2 months (less than 6 is considered a seller’s market) and our home prices continue to increase each month. The latter is due primarily to the low inventory keeping demand high for the homes on the market.
As we’ve discussed several times lately, both the national and local real estate markets are seeing a gradual shift from a seller’s market to one of equilibrium (ie-neither buyers or sellers have an advantage). This is easily seen in the 1st graphic below where several economists’ predictions are listed. They don’t see the bottom falling out, by any means, just a slow progression of lower price increases in the next few years for home sellers. Gone are the days of 7-10% annual price increases sellers saw the first few years of our current bull run. Add in future mortgage rate increases (2nd graphic below), and you can see that it might be a good time for any home seller wanting to cash-out their equity to sell their home sooner, rather than later. Contact us at 512-730-1252 so we can calculate your home’s current market value and how much you would net from the sale of your home.
